Soul food

The autumnal equinox arrives in two days, so the weather has been cooler lately with fewer days of sunshine. I kind of like it. It's a chance for me to slow down and embrace being a homebody. Aside from the apparent social aspect, going out gets tiring, especially when I can be doing so many productive things indoors. Things like cooking!

This week, my winging-it aspirations evolved into making comfort food. Initially I wanted to prep some oxtail in the Instant Pot for soup stock, but after tasting that I put too much lemon in the base, decided to diminish the sourness significantly by turning the oxtail soup into kare kare. Kare kare is a peanut-based stew with oxtail and sometimes tripe that originated in the Philippines. My mom showed me how to make it one year, and I've been making it occasionally since. After eating that for a few days, I fried some lumpia for dinner and prepped a homemade dipping sauce comprising white vinegar, pressed garlic (it can also be crushed), pepper, and soy sauce.

The lumpia was made at my sister's during a family visit. She prepped the filling while my mom, nephew, and I sat around and rolled. We don't use recipes to cook these things so I cannot provide any in this post, but if you taste it a few times and have someone show you how to make both kare kare and lumpia, then you'll be making it in no time. If I know you, ask me how. 

Kare kare: oxtail cooked tender, tripe optional, long beans, eggplant, baby bok choy optional, and tons of peanut butter; use chopped peanuts as garnish and eat with bagoong (shrimp paste) and rice

Lumpia (my family's style): ground beef or turkey, frozen vegetable mix, oyster sauce, soy sauce, salt, pepper—all to taste—and stir-fried in a large skillet or wok, then cooled down before wrapping
Tip: Use lumpia wrappers, not won ton wrappers, not spring roll or egg roll wrappers, but lumpia wrappers. The kind that says Lola Ludy's or Tita Fely's on the box ;). 

Kare kare doesn't look like anything much without all the garnishes, but it packs a wonderfully nutty and savory flavor!

Pouring soy sauce into the mixture of vinegar and garlic before stirring with a chopstick.

Ooooh yeah